CD Drive not recognised

In a phone chat with a friend today, she said that her CD drive won't work and that she will have to call someone out.

"Don't do that" says I, "I know some very nice people who I'm sure will be able to help..."

So, I'm posting the exact contents of her subsequent email, in the hopes that someone will come up with a solution, please.

"Any assistance would be gratefully received.My operating system is Win 98 2nd edition. I have two hard drives C: and D:. My CD drive is E: I went through some kind of wizard recently and there was confusion (on my part probably) in one of the final steps when both the C & D drives were indicated & I did not resolve it correctly. Now, although Explorer shows the contents of the CD, I cannot open or transfer anything from it. A rude note in Explorer says 'Cannot copy. Cannot read from specified defice.'"

She need's to start with win98 floppy start disc at a:\> type scanreg/restore she will get several backup's offered to restore from she need's to choose a date before the date she made the changes and then press enter

I won't tick until tomorrow, when my friend tries out the above suggestions - it's too late to phone her now. I'm a bit worried that the error occurred before the 5-day backup that Windows keeps, in which case I'll presumably need some advice about going into the BIOS.